Police said the victim’s remaining eye was so badly damaged it was likely to be beyond repair.
Patrick Lee Rose, 53, was arrested by officers from the Lander Police Department on November 26 after medical staff reported an attack on a patient at the hospital.
In court documents, Bryan Potratz, a nurse at the hospital, alleged Rose carried out the attack “before he could react.”
According to reports, Potratz was helped by fellow nurse, Jim Hanson, in stopping the alleged assault and restraining the suspect until law enforcement arrived at the scene.
The suspect was arrested while still wearing hospital scrubs covered in blood. He is charged with aggravated assault and faces up to 10 years in prison along with $10,000 in fines.
During his court hearing, Rose, from Dubois, Wyoming, told the judge that he had “an acquired brain injury.”
Court documents quoted by local news outlet the Casper Star-Tribune described the victim’s left eye as “misshapen and swollen to the point of bulging out of its socket.”
They said that as police arrived at the hospital the victim had gauze covering her right eye and a nurse was at her bedside maintaining pressure on it.
Fremont County Attorney Deputy Dan Stebner called the incident “disturbing,” adding: “This was a bizarre incident committed against a complete stranger who’d had no prior involvement or interaction with Mr Rose. His mental condition seems to be the driving influence in what happened.
“What seems to have led to this is, he quit taking some prescribed medication and had a very bizarre and extreme reaction to that—as is obvious from the alleged offense and the facts of it.”
According to the Tribune, Lander Circuit Court Judge Robert Denhardt said: “People who take psychotropic medications and suffer from mental illness have a tendency to believe they don’t need to take the medication and then quit taking them, and then things go wrong from them.”
Stebner claimed Rose’s behavior over the weekend when he was held in detention “deems him an extreme danger, at least at this point.”
Details about the victim, including her name, age and initial reason for being in hospital were not disclosed.
She was said to have been moved out of the state to receive further treatment for her injuries.
